Helimax provides a USB cable and a PC program to adjust the FORM500’s flight controller to a
pilot’s preferences.

A removable tray makes battery
swaps easy, but there is some
play in the latch mechanism.

some shaking in the resulting video
footage, but it isn’t bad.

The static camera mounts are also
handy platforms for attaching other
devices to the FORM500’s payload
rails. I ordered a few spare mounts and
adapted one of them to mate with an
RC Logger X3 three-axis gimbal. The
gimbal removes all of the pitch-and-roll
movements of the quadcopter from the
video footage and provides better overall
results.

I should warn you that not every
idea is a good one. In my quest to come
up with unique applications for the
FORM500, I decided to hang a crepe
paper streamer from it. The idea was to
hover the quadcopter while my friends
tried to cut the dangling streamer with
their park flyers.

Using spare RC parts, I built a
motorized spool for the streamer. Using
a zip tie, I attached my contraption to
the payload rail and connected it to one
of the radio’s spare channels for control.
This allowed me to remotely feed out
more of the streamer after one of my
fellow pilots made a cut.

Everything worked great and it was a
lot of fun … that is, until it was time to
land the FORM500. Because of the way
that I designed it, I couldn’t retract the
streamer, so there was some crepe paper
dangling when I began to descend. In an
instant, the streamer somehow drifted
into all four propellers and stopped
them cold.

The FORM500 took a 50-foot
swan dive to the hard ground. I was
amazed that the only broken parts
were a propeller, one landing gear leg,
and a frame arm. All were easy and
inexpensive fixes.

A more successful application that I
tried was banner towing. I simply tied
a banner to approximately 20 feet of
nylon string and added 3 ounces of
weight to the bottom. I then attached
the other end of the string to the
quadcopter’s camera mount. The
FORM500 had no trouble handling the
weight and drag of the banner, even on
breezy days.

Conclusion

Similar to many jacks-of-all-trade
aircraft, the Helimax FORM500 doesn’t
excel at any particular task, yet it does
many things well. If you’ve considered
getting onboard the multirotor craze,
but aren’t sure how you would want to
use the aircraft, this quadcopter gives
you options. Not only is it available at
a low price for an RTF system, but it
provides a variety of ways to configure
its capabilities and flight performance to
your needs.